2014 June Stewards Minutes

Seekers Church

June 8 (Pentecost Sunday), 2014 Stewards Meeting

Cynthia Dahlin Trish Nemore, Deborah Sokolove,

 

Metro Development: Jeffrey Silverstone

In preparation for an upcoming hearing on the size of the building, sidewalk width and related bike access to be constructed on land adjacent to the Takoma Park Metro stop, Jeffrey circulated a statement representing Seekers Church to support current zoning requirements. APPROVED with one “stand-aside.” Jeffrey agreed to include a few suggested changes and email a final copy to be filed with these notes.

His second proposal, to post a “right-sized not super-sized development” sign in the front window a week before the hearing, was NOT APPROVED.

Bokamoso: Career Development Workshop & ADP Program: Jim Cawley

With gratitude for Seekers continued support of the January fund-raising visit by 12 Bokamoso youth and 3 staff members, Jim described how the visiting group has been able to take what they’ve learned here to help other Bokamoso youth in Winterveld. With Solly’s sudden death, Mmule Tsogi has become the Center Coordinator and the staff is sorting out various practical issues in an effort to be more collaborative and transparent.

Jim also described the daily schedule for 60 youth involved in the Adolescent Development Program (ADP). In morning and afternoon sessions, they cover a variety of critical life skills: anger management, conflict resolution, crime prevention, women & child abuse, career development, sports & fitness, gender issues, history and culture (there are 11 official languages), computer skills and HIV/Aids awareness.

Q: How can Seekers be a better partner for Bokamoso?

A: Increase awareness of their situation. Maybe brainstorm to expand the possible work-site situations to include entrepreneurial explore.  Jim also offered several short videos from Winterveld which we could use to invite work-site situations.

Earth Day Celebration at Dayspring (June 1):  Peter

Early in the afternoon, some hiked with Jim Hall and Cheryl Hellner, while other gathered on the Farmhouse porch to hear stories from the Hubers and othe

About 40 people were present for the closing worship, and four churches participated in creating the worship: Dayspring, Eighth Day, Festival Church and Seekers.  Peter produced the worship folder and Ken was co-liturgist with Jean Brown. Ten Seekers were present.

Suggestion for next year: bill this as the yearly gathering of the Church of the Saviour, rather than a Dayspring “Earth Day” event. Email notification is not enough.

Progressive Network Listing: Peter

Noting that Seekers has been listed on the Progressive Network website for a long time, he passed out “Eight identifying marks” listed on their website.  Stewards APPROVED spending $75 to continue our membership, and PAT volunteered to monitor this network and add a descriptive paragraph about Seekers.

Accountability exercise: Marjory

Looking at the last three spiritual practices that Stewards agree to, we focused on “identifying our gifts.”  In groups of three or four, we identified gifts “for the good of the whole” in each person, and asked each person to claim one of those gifts as specially touching or important.

 Afterward, we talked about the expectation that, unless someone is sick or away, we do expect all Stewards to attend meetings. This completes the survey of commonly accepted spiritual practices among Stewards.

The meeting closed with SOUL TALK.

Submitted by Marjory Bankson

June 10, 2014